My House Is Trying To Kill Me

[bluesbend]

I'd find another place to live if I were you.
That place obviosly has Black Mold which is extremely hard to get rid of, bleach won't kill it. Once that stuff gets into your respiratory system it can cause all sorts of problems.
My wife and I rented a house for about 2 years back in the 80's, before we moved in we painted the living room and bedroom, both of which had the same type of black spots as in your picture. We didn't know it was black mold. Before painting we scrubbed the spots away with Spic 'n Span which contains bleach. Within 6 months the spots came back. We scrubbed them again and they came back again.

That stuff is a dangerous health hazzard.

[Petrovsk Mizinski]

How ya holding up currently?

[crusty philtrum]

Not good. It is getting smelly in here ... mold ..... it doesn't feel good. In fact i'm looking at my options, which are limited, and it's depressing. I am going to speak to my landlord on Monday to find out why no-one has been to fix the roof yet, but i am also going to ask him whether he has any other properties i might be able to rent.

My landlord is not a real estate guy but a property developer, and i happen to know that he has houses all over the place. Being as I have lived here for 10 years and always paid the rent on time and taken care of most maintenance around here, i have proven myself to be a good and reliable tenant, so if he has anywhere else available, it could work out to the benefit of both of us.

I am also considering putting my stuff into a storage unit and trying to find somewhere temporary where i could base myself while i spend however much time it takes to find another place, get accepted and raise the funds for getting in to a new place (with the rent in advance, security bond, truck hire costs, utilities costs etc .... usually a couple of thousand dollars).

So it's a bleak outlook unless this roof could be fixed and the mould killed off very very soon. Tonight i am going to cut up the blackened carpet and get it out of the house, although then the floorboards will get the water (they are already very wet). But i certainly can't do anything about the mold in the ceiling and walls while the rain continues to come in.

[GoldenVulture]

What happened here? Did they come and fix your roof?

[verbotenco]

The first thing to get rid of is the carpet! Must be very disgusting. I can't stand dusty carpet let alone a wet one. That's why my house uses masonry flooring. Moving out is the ultimate solution.

[crusty philtrum]

I cut away a big section of the carpet and disposed of it (I was wearing gloves and a mask, it was not a pleasant task and it sure didn't feel healthy, the underneath of the carpet was black and it stunk).

Eventually a guy turned up to look at the outside of the roof. Apparently it has been repaired in the past but now the original metal and the metal used in the repairs has rusted and this time the job will need to be done properly ... at great expense. The roof guy would have passed his quote along to the owner of the house, who is very likely to NOT want to pay such a sum of money on this house. I haven't heard from the owner yet, and may not.

I suspect that the owner may do nothing and leave it to me to either stay or go. But if the roof isn't fixed, this house will be on the verge of being condemned if the authorities were to see it ... the value here is the land, not the house, and the owner knows that. Basically, if the roof doesn't get fixed in some way, i will have to leave here, which will be a big issue because the rental scene here is very tight, there is a shortage of rental properties and the prices have become very high. Just getting accepted for a new place will be difficult. Plus I'll need to amass at least a couple of thousand dollars to cover the costs involved with getting into a new place.

Fortunately there hasn't been much rain for the last couple of weeks, but there is rain coming, and we're into autumn now, there will be more rain.

[bluesbend]

Best of luck to you crusty.

[Reload in 5]

I cut away a big section of the carpet and disposed of it (I was wearing gloves and a mask, it was not a pleasant task and it sure didn't feel healthy, the underneath of the carpet was black and it stunk).

Eventually a guy turned up to look at the outside of the roof. Apparently it has been repaired in the past but now the original metal and the metal used in the repairs has rusted and this time the job will need to be done properly ... at great expense. The roof guy would have passed his quote along to the owner of the house, who is very likely to NOT want to pay such a sum of money on this house. I haven't heard from the owner yet, and may not.

I suspect that the owner may do nothing and leave it to me to either stay or go. But if the roof isn't fixed, this house will be on the verge of being condemned if the authorities were to see it ... the value here is the land, not the house, and the owner knows that. Basically, if the roof doesn't get fixed in some way, i will have to leave here, which will be a big issue because the rental scene here is very tight, there is a shortage of rental properties and the prices have become very high. Just getting accepted for a new place will be difficult. Plus I'll need to amass at least a couple of thousand dollars to cover the costs involved with getting into a new place.

Fortunately there hasn't been much rain for the last couple of weeks, but there is rain coming, and we're into autumn now, there will be more rain.

That sucks because you know he doesnt care one way or the other. If you stay he gets his rent and if the building is condemned he sells the land.
Did you talk to him about another place?

[crusty philtrum]

Did you talk to him about another place?

No ... as much as i would like to, I didn't want to bring the idea of moving out of here to his attention just yet, at least until I know whether he may or may not pay for the roof repairs ( see the following post).

Here's a pic I took after I'd cut away a large section of carpet and disposed of it (this is the doorway with the mold up above it, as seen in the pic on the previous page). At the time, there was still a lot of rain, so i still needed the trays and towels on the floor .... those trays would fill up and i'd empty them into a bucket, and each time, the bucket would be half full. I was emptying them twice a day, so i'd estimate about ten litres a day were coming in.

Since i took this pic, we have had better weather and I have been able to remove the trays and towels and keep the front and back doors open to let air through and to dry the floorboards. Where the towels are is where i removed the carpet.

[crusty philtrum]

This afternoon I just found a letter in my mailbox from my landlord .... apparently the roof is going to be repaired on Wednesday ! It seems that the landlord is going to pay, which has surprised me as the guy that came to do the quote said it was going to be expensive (its possible the landlord has asked for the work to be done as cheaply as possible, but I don't care, this is certainly not an award-winning show home ... as long as it keeps the rain out is good enough for me).

Once i feel certain that the roof is sealed, I can try to do something about the mold in the wall above the doorway. But getting the roof fixed is the priority at the moment, and it's a relief to know that its going to happen. I have wondered whether this might pre-empt a rent increase, but I'll deal with that issue if it arises (in a fair world, my rent should actually be decreasing as this place crumbles, not increasing, hehe).

[gilaltom3]

Hope it all works out, brother. Mold is no joke. I'd be on his ass about that pretty quickly.

[GuitarStv]

Check your city laws regarding a rent increase. In Canada (well, Ontario anyway) rent can only be increased after a 90 day notice has been sent, and 2.6% is the maximum that it can be increased each year.

[TheLivingDead]

Crusty Threshold!

But good, man. Glad that's all getting cleared up.

Fungal neck protrusions are so not in style right now.

[GoldenVulture]

This afternoon I just found a letter in my mailbox from my landlord .... apparently the roof is going to be repaired on Wednesday ! It seems that the landlord is going to pay, which has surprised me as the guy that came to do the quote said it was going to be expensive (its possible the landlord has asked for the work to be done as cheaply as possible, but I don't care, this is certainly not an award-winning show home ... as long as it keeps the rain out is good enough for me).

Once i feel certain that the roof is sealed, I can try to do something about the mold in the wall above the doorway. But getting the roof fixed is the priority at the moment, and it's a relief to know that its going to happen. I have wondered whether this might pre-empt a rent increase, but I'll deal with that issue if it arises (in a fair world, my rent should actually be decreasing as this place crumbles, not increasing, hehe).

Good to see. Maybe he decided your worth spending the money on, as you've been there for years.

[JOLLY]

Glad to hear the roof is getting fixed.

[Aceman]

jkl

[dr. ad]

glad to see you're getting some traction on this, the situation really wasn't looking good for a while...

if the repairs drag on (and they probably will) you may want to come up north for some sun and fresh air

[crusty philtrum]

glad to see you're getting some traction on this, the situation really wasn't looking good for a while...

if the repairs drag on (and they probably will) you may want to come up north for some sun and fresh air

Thanks Ad .... I'm assuming the outer roof repair should be able to be started and completed on the same day, and that is supposed to happen this week. That will solve the immedaite problem of water getting in, but then i'll need to see if i can deal with the mold in the roof and in the wall above the doorway. To the best of my knowledge, only the outer roof is being repaired, although i did show the guy that did the quote the damage inside the house.

All this has been problematic in the past and repaired before i moved in here. There was black spore marks above the doorway then, and despite ten years of living here, that stuff has never visibly spread. When I moved in here, there was no roof insulation, that was installed under the government scheme maybe three years ago. I am very much hoping that the insulation is treated with some kind of mold inhibitor, because if it's not .... it ain't going to be a good thing.

I have even thought about removing the plaster from the framework above the doorway, on both sides, and just leaving the open frame. At least that way there would be nothing inside to fester into anything nasty. Trouble is, this house is so old that it was built long before plasterboard was invented, it uses the 'lath and plaster' method where hundreds of thin strips of wood were attached to the framework, and then actual wet plaster was slapped over the top, seeping through the gaps in the wooden strips and then drying, thus being held in place. I'd have to cut all that away (you can see an example of the strips in the first pic i posted, where the plaster has fallen away from the ceiling above the doorway).